


Tyrannosaurus

by ekbe_vile



Category: Constantine (TV)
Genre: Angst, Drunkenness, Guilt, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Regrets, puke
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-20
Updated: 2015-09-20
Packaged: 2018-04-22 15:39:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4840967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ekbe_vile/pseuds/ekbe_vile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John's not the only one prone to self-flagellation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tyrannosaurus

Chas knows sometimes all you can do is drink, just close your eyes and throw yourself down that bottle and hope that when you come out the other side, things’ll be better. They never are, but the hope sticks around longer than the hangover; the hope is what keeps you human.

It’s a hard habit to shake, hope is, but John has managed it admirably. Chas comes back from a weekend with Geraldine to find the mill house trashed. Empty bottles, makeshift ashtrays, magical ingredients tossed about like fallen leaves in a storm.

Chas feels like he might be sick, because this is the last sort of thing he wants to walk in on. Then again, nobody _wants_ this, not really, not even John, who has built his own theater of self-loathing. Pity he needs an audience for his pageantry; pity these days it’s always Chas seated front and center.

He knows how John suffers - he doesn’t need to see it, doesn’t need to sweep up the debris when the floodwaters recede. He wants his life back - his wife and his daughter and the house in Brooklyn with the mortgage he was crazy to think he could afford on cab fares. 

Zed has left a post-it stuck to the wall behind the hook where Chas hangs his hat. _Sorry,_ is all it says, but the word is full of surprising angles.

He doesn’t blame her for leaving. It’s the right decision, when John gets like this. Any attempt to drag him free of the mire is sure to provoke violence. John decides when the punishment ends, and John alone. Chas accepted that particular truth long ago.

He finds John in the bathroom, crack of light peeking under the door guiding him beacon bright down the dark hall. John is crumpled in front of the toilet, his tie trailing through the bowl and his cheek pressed flat against the seat. He’s asleep, or just unconscious, too sweat-soaked and weary to drag himself to bed.

He groans, now - shifts, waking just enough to hug the toilet and brace himself for the next round of nausea. It’s a slow retching - he spits out a string of bile - coughs, then moans, voice as raw and bloody as his knuckles. He doesn’t bother to wipe his mouth, just lets his head sink back down to its porcelain pillow.

Chas winces - for John, for his tie, for the hours ahead. He could leave John here to cuddle up with the plumbing, but the bastard looks so small and vulnerable, like a baby animal, and Chas knows John’s knees have been giving him grief when he stays down on them too long.

He touches John’s shoulder, gets a flutter of bruised eyelids in response. “S’all right,” he says, fishes John’s tie out of the toilet water. “Let’s get you to bed.”

John doesn’t fight, but he doesn’t help, either. Chas winds up half-dragging him, half-carrying him to his room - for his part, John lets his head loll onto Chas’ shoulder and presses his nose into Chas’ neck. Which means he’s close enough for Chas to get a heady whiff of his breath and _fuck_ he’s pissed in alleys that smell better.

But he gets John into his room, and gets him into bed. He discards the tie as a total loss and goes to get a glass of water and aspirin. By the time he makes his way back from the kitchen John is curled up on his side, back to the door.

Chas could pretend he is asleep. He could leave the water and painkillers, switch off the lights and go.

Instead he crosses the room and pulls the blankets up over John - sits on the edge of the bed and watches his friend’s face. John stays still and quiet, but there’s a familiar tightness around his mouth.

“Are you going to tell me what happened?”

John’s eyes stay closed, but his brow furrows. “You gonna ask?”

There’s still enough liquor in his voice to slur his words. Chas worries about leaving him alone like this, but the danger he might asphyxiate on his own vomit has passed, and Chas doesn’t want to push his luck. Not now, at least. He pats John’s hip, says, “Get some sleep,” and heads back to his own room, where he can almost see the cold crouched in the corners, waiting to steal over him while he sleeps.

But Chas can’t sleep. He gets a beer from the kitchen, settles on the couch in front of the mirror. He doubts it will show him anything helpful.

When he looks, Chas sees himself – rougher, bloodier, no scabs to cover fresh wounds. He’s sitting at the edge of the couch and his fists are tight with anger. It could be any night, any number of fights that have left him bristling, but then John steps into the scene, a bottle of whiskey in one hand and a glass in the other.

And Chas remembers that sometimes, all you can do is drink.

He watches himself swat the glass out of John’s hand - grabs the bottle, drinks and winces and drinks again. He can’t hear what he yells at John, but he remembers it wasn’t kind. 

John stands with shoulders hunched, almost looking chastened, but then he huffs a laugh and shakes his head and the mirror might not have an audio option, but Chas doesn’t need it, he knows exactly what Constantine said.

_If I hadn’t cast that spell, you’d be dead in the ground, did you think of that? Don’t you want to see your daughter grow up?_

The nerve had still been naked and throbbing, and Chas had lashed out like a cornered animal. He watches now in mute horror as his mirror-self lurches toward John.

Constantine doesn’t even try to get away. Chas grabs his arm and jerks it, hard enough to probably dislocate his shoulder, but John just goes with it, winds up sprawled across Chas’ lap. He laughs, says something that might have been a joke, or maybe a provocation. Chas can’t remember, now, and it’s no excuse for the way he drags John’s mouth down to his.

He wishes he didn’t remember this – wishes he could forget it all again, bury it down deep in the Georgia swamps like a body. Let the gators have it. But John’s passed out upstairs, and John’s in the mirror, and Chas is biting him and bruising him and pushing him down to his knees.

From this angle, he can’t see John’s face, only his own – how he grins when John gets his fly open, and squeezes his eyes shut when John puts his mouth where it belongs. Unkind fingers knotted in dirty blond hair, twisting and pulling and holding John’s head in place. Chas remembers how he’d choked, the red stain of involuntary tears tracking through stubble as Chas fucked his throat. How John had accepted it like a penance.

Chas doesn’t need to watch, and he doesn’t need to drink, but John’s not the only master of self-flagellation in the mill house. The sun is almost up by the time he makes his way to bed, although he could be wrong about that, because he finds himself standing in John’s room instead of his own. 

He must have gotten up at some point during the night to shower, because his hair is damp and he smells like soap when Chas slides in behind him. John huffs, but he doesn’t pull away. “If you’re expecting a ‘thanks’ you can take your Tyrannosaurus prick elsewhere,” John mutters into the pillow, but he doesn’t pull away when Chas sneaks an arm around his waist, which is all Chas wants to do right now, anyway.


End file.
